Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/186

156 depth of more than a hundred feet. The sentence passed on Sarah was that she should be cast into the flood immediately above the point from which the rapid made its start. At the first dawn of morning she was to be tied to a canoe of bark, and left to the mercy of the current of the Madeira.

That the execution of the sentence was deferred till the morrow, was not for the purpose of giving respite to the condemned victim, but only that she might be reserved for a night of terror and alarm.

The publication of the verdict was a signal for universal joy, and a frantic outburst of delight spread all around.

The night was spent in the wildest orgies. The Indians became intoxicated with their draughts of burning brandy; they danced in derisive revelry around the passive girl; they rushed about with disheveled hair, and scoured the wilderness around, waving aloft great flaming pine-branches. Thus they continued till the early twilight of the morning; and thus, with yet frantic frenzy, they saluted the first rays of the rising sun.

The fatal hour arrived, and no sooner was the girl liberated from the stake to which she had been secured, than a hundred arms were voluntarily outstretched to bear her to the scene of punishment. The name of Martin Paz escaped her lips, and the outcry of hatred and revenge waxed louder than before. In order to reach the highest level of the stream, they had to clamber by the roughest paths up the rocks that overhung the bed of the river, so that when she arrived Sarah was besprinkled once again with blood. They found the bark canoe in readiness at about a hundred yards above the waterfall, and having laid their prisoner down they lashed her in her place with cords that cut deeply into her very flesh.

The cry of the multitude went up as the cry of one man "Vengeance!"

Whirling round and round, the canoe was carried rapidly along. At this moment, upon the opposite bank, were seen two men, Martin Paz and Don Vegal.

" My daughter ! my daughter! " shouted the father as he fell upon his knees.

The canoe swept onwards nearer to the fall. Mounted upon a rock, Martin Paz unwound his long lasso, which